Japan killing spree ‘lasted 2 months’
TOKYO (AFP) — A Japanese man arrested after police found nine dismembered corpses rotting in his house has confessed to killing all his young victims over a two-month spree after contacting them via Twitter, media reports said Wednesday.
Takahiro Shiraishi, 27, has also confessed he “assaulted” all of his eight female victims, the Fuji TV network said, using a Japanese media euphemism for sexual attacks.
Prosecutors were now quizzing Shiraishi, who has reportedly admitted hacking the flesh off the bodies and throwing it out with the trash, then sprinkling cat litter over the remains in an effort to cover up the evidence.
In all, some 240 pieces of bone belonging to nine people, including heads and limbs, were discovered inside coolers and toolboxes at his apartment, the Tokyo Shimbun said.
The grisly case has stunned Japan, which enjoys an extremely low crime rate, and pictures of the nondescript apartment building in a quiet residential area were splashed across the country’s front pages.
“Killing room,” splashed the Nikkan Sports tabloid. “One murder a week,” wrote the Sports Nippon.
Details also began to emerge as to how investigators tracked down the suspected killer and trapped him using the same medium — Twitter — he himself used to lure his victims.
Police were led to Shiraishi while investigating the disappearance of a 23-year-old woman, who had reportedly tweeted she wanted to take her own life.
Her brother managed to hack into her Twitter account, noticed a suspicious handle, and then tweeted about his sister’s disappearance, major media said.
One female follower told him that she recognized the handle.
The brother asked her to contact the person, while he also reported the case to police, the Yomiuri daily said.
The woman managed to convince Shiraishi to come to a train station, where investigators awaited and followed him to his house, media say.
Immediately after he returned to his apartment, police knocked on the door and found a white bag belonging to the missing sister, the Yomiuri said.
“When investigators asked the whereabouts of the sister, Shiraishi said ‘inside the cooler,’ pointing at it,” the Yomiuri said.
Shiraishi has reportedly told police that four of his victims were teenagers, four others were around 20 years old and the other was in his or her late 20s. There were eight female victims and one male.